Many animal feeds are prepared in the form of pellets. The production of feed pellets involves subjecting the feed to moist heat, followed by mechanical pressing.
Steam pelleting (a.k.a. steam pelletizing) involves mixing feed components generally having a high content of starch, steam conditioning the mixture, and mechanically pressing to form pellets in a die press. In steam pelleting, the feed mixture after steam treatment generally has a fairly low water content, resulting in little or no gelatinization of starch in the feed mixture during the pellet pressing. In contrast, an alternative process of feed preparation involves extrusion cooking where the water content is generally higher and the starch in the feed tends to gelatinize to a high degree. The feed components generally have a high content of starch, and the pelleting is generally done at lower moisture than the alternative process of extrusion. The pressing of pellets involves considerable energy consumption, and it is of interest to reduce this energy consumption.
US 2009/0297664 A1 discloses a method for low temperature forming of starch based and/or protein based feeds. US 2004/0076715 A1 discloses a method of making a dry pet food product.